Recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in the Guardian, click photograph to view
Last week, I decided to make a pizza from scratch, riffing on my new favourite pizza recipe (pictured above in a page from my recipe book). I made the dough from scratch and left it to rise for an hour or two, caramelised a load of red onions, rolled out the pizza dough and topped it with passata, spinach, Parmesan and an egg (plus tuna for mr v).
I popped the first in the oven. Eight minutes later, the timer pinged, I peeked through the glass to see a gorgeous looking pizza (if I say so myself) and… The inner glass door exploded everywhere! Ack!
The pizza and the oven were both a glassy mess.
Can you imagine how upsetting it was so spend all that time creating this, but it being totally inedible? We tried picking the glass out (don’t try this at home kids) but every time we thought we’d got it all, another shard would glint at us…
I was going to attempt to fry the second (still raw) pizza (google suggested it might not be a total failure). When I discovered that it, too, somehow had a sprinkling of glass on it, I balled up all that lovely dough and threw it in the bin. I might have had a little strop.
We got a takeaway pizza.
I’ll try again when the oven is fixed!
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23 Comments
OMG!
I know, WTF?!
Oh gosh, that’s terrible!! The pizza looked really good though, I’d love to have the recipe when you try again.
I will be sure to share! I kept the dough exactly as the recipe I linked to (and is in the picture) but exchanged kneading for mixing with the kitchenaid dough hook, I made it successfully once and loved it (with the recommended asparagus and pancetta). I’m not sure if it’s the best dough (keep meaning to try the smitten kitchen ones) but the rising time seems to work for me. Anyway, YES I will share when I make it again!
How crazy!! Glad you decided against eating shards of glass. Hope the oven isn’t too expensive to repair/replace! :S
One of the few benefits of renting is that it wil get sorted for us, hooray!
Oh my gosh! How does that happen?!?! That is so crazy!!!
I don’t know! I had in on “max” but not past max and it hadn’t been running for hours… The landlady is getting it fixed so I’ll report back if the repair man says anything! X
I love that you were more upset about losing the pizza than breaking the oven.
Kitchen disasters are just the worst…glad you were able to shrug it off and share!
Haha! Maybe I should have mentionned that as I was using it in a totally normal fashion (admittedly turned up to max), the landlady will be taking care of fixing it. It was a shame it happened before a four day weekend though – I wanted to do a load of baking!
That is terrible!! I was seriously drooling over that pizza photo. I can just imagine how upsetting it was to smell it cooking too and then not be able to eat it. I once took a homemade lasagna out of our freezer and popped it in the oven for an hour or so – very excited to eat it especially because I could smell it. Then when I took it out I removed the tin foil and then remembered that I had saran wrapped it beneath the tin foil. Needless to say it was all melted and stuck to the lasagna and we had to throw the whole thing out. I was quite upset!!
Glad your oven can be fixed for you though- that is definitely a perk to renting!
Oh man! That must have sucked too! The smell was the worst thing, you’re right!
OMG! How in the heck did that happen? Loosing the pizza is bad enough, but do you have to get a new oven, or was the inner glass window not needed? That really sucks.
I know!!! Luckily we’re renting and the appliances were included, so the landlady is sending someone around tomorrow, hooray. I can’t wait to own a home, but time’s like these it’s a relief to be renting!
Thanks so much for the comment. I’m so excited to see what you do with your new house!
I would have seriously cried. About the pizza. The oven can be replaced but pizza? Nope. Super frustrating! Hopefully they fixed it quickly!
Thanks for feeling my pain Sydney! Hope you’re having a cracking time (ps. Oven should be fixed today)
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Oh no!!! What a sad story
I must admit though that pizza looked amazing! The oven was just jealous 
Haha! That’s the story I’ll tell myself from now on. It should be getting fixed today so I’m looking forward to making some pizza soon!
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Holy Sh%t please excuse my French. What a drag! I broke an entire glass on my first born while I was giving him his first bath- I imagine, this was just as upsetting!!!! That pizza looks yummy! So sad!!!!!
Oh no! I’m glad he ws ok, my mum still winces when she talks about the time she cut my baby finger with a bread knife by mistake. Thanks so much for the sympathy – the oven is back in action now so I’ll try and recreate the pizza asap!
Looking forward to a positive end result!!!!
Eeeeek that stinks! I’ve never heard of something like that happening. I have ruined food in the oven before, but the oven hasn’t ever ruined my food for me. It must have a feeling that I’m capable of that all on my own.
Hahaha!